Glorious, elaborate, profane insults of the world

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An open Reddit thread entitled "What are your favorite culturally untranslateable phrases?" rapidly degenerated into a collection of rollicking, profane, grotesque insults, each more alarming and delightful than the last. Read the whole thing, of course, but here are some of the less profane examples:

* The Dutch phrase for giving too much attention to insignificant details is "ant fucking".

* Finnish: "Kyrpä otsassa" - a vulgar way to say you're incredibly annoyed. It means that you have a dick in your forehead (should be visualized as hanging forward, rather than actually in your forehead, for some reason).

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I wonder in which way they are truly “untranslatable”. Both the ant-fucking and the comma-fucking seem awfully close to “ErbsenzÃ¤hler” (pea counter) and “Korinthenkacker” (Raisin-shitter) in German, for example.

As I was growing up in the central Midwest, a phrase often used to question why someone was having a bad day was “Who pissed in your Corn Flakes today?” or “Did someone piss in your Wheaties this morning?”

However, a friend of mine had this (IMHO) great little phrase – “using shit to ice the cake” – which he used to describe purposefully fucking up someone’s supposedly happy day.

its maori, and roughly means “boiled head” (‘upoko’ meaning head and ‘kohua’ meaning to boil), stemming from the fact that maori tribes would sometimes engage in acts of cannibalism after defeating another tribe in battle – the defeated tribes chief or war party leader would be decapitated, his head boiled then eaten, as the ultimate gesture of disrespect.

because it is just as much a promise as it is an insult, “pokokohua” is therefore the harshest word in the maori language, and is never used in its proper sense anymore.

Somewhere in a drawer, I have the phonetic pronunciation in Afrikaans of: “Your mother has an electric-green cunt that shoots porridge.” It speaks of a “voor-voor” and ends with “sagwat skeet pup” or somesuch.

Great, now I’m gonna have to find it. This could take all day. Thanks, Boing-Boing. I should be raking leaves.

Hebrew:
“Al ha-zayyin sheli v’lo kaved” or just “al ha-zayyin sheli”
Basically, you are impaled upon my penis but it’s not heavy at all. Or just, this thing or person is resting upon my penis, and I don’t care.
Sort me means, fuck it, fuck this person or situation who might be put out but I don’t care. Has many variations.

And about that reddit thread: I find it somewhat amusing that ‘carrying owls to Athens’ is mentioned a couple of times, but the proper explanation is never given: Owls were kind of the symbol of Athens and on their coins.

Although it does translate, one of my favourites is the Irish:
“TÃ¡ tÃº chomh h-ainneoin le chÃºl mo mhagairlÃ­ nach bhfaca tada riamh seachas cac” – You are as ignorant as the back of my balls, which has never seen anything but shit.

The comeback to “You can’t polish a turd” is “but you can roll it in glitter”.

I remember this meme from ’99 starting with “Warmducher” (Person who needs their shower to be warm). My favourite I think was “Parkplatzblinker” (someone who uses their turn indicator while in a carpark.

I understand what the insult regarding using turn signals in parking lots implies, but… in the US, the way people drive in parking lots is ridiculous. It’s like suddenly all of the normal rules of the road not only no longer apply, but being smart and paying attention also no longer apply. I especially like when they drive 30 mph across all the parking spots (not in the driving lanes). So, people being courteous, and yes, using turn signals, might be helpful.

Anyway regarding strange insults… it strikes me that at least 2/3 of the US English ones given in the comments here on BB, like “pissing in your cornflakes” or “bastard-hard as cunting-fuck” are not only easily translatable, but terribly uncreative and certainly don’t involve clever wordplay.

I think we need some UK readers to show how it’s done in (the Queen’s) English!

A cute German phrase I learned — and, native speakers, feel free to correct any errors — is “eine Stange Wasser in die Ecke abstellen”, meaning to take a leak, but literally “stand a stick of water up in the corner”.

It’s a bit strange to have so many native English speakers trying to get heard in a thread that’s specifically to let the non English speaking BoingBoingers shine.
Let us have our moment and you guys can tell us about colorful phrases in different parts of America another day. Deal?

One from my Colombian father: “Cambiar el agua en las aceitunas” lit. “change the water in the olives” meaning to go urinate. Of course, in a similar vein, there’s the ever popular “Gotta see a man about a dog”.

Meaning that person is really worried about something, usually a touch and go situation.

A rather old one is ‘Maulaffen feilhalten’. Direct translation involves muzzle-monkeys and an acient term for selling. Looking it up, it actually dates back to a 13th century term about kindling that you held in your mouth while lighting a fire.

While an exchange student in Austria in the mid-80’s my host brother taught me the phrase “scheibescheisse” which refers to the flecks of fly shit on your dirty windows, therefore something small and insignificant but quite annoying.

My favorite personal coinage is “all foreplay and no fuck”, meaning someone who talks a big game, but never does anything.

I’ve always wondered if the hockey term “hat trick” is as well known (to the point of being a useful idiom) outside of Canada, (and maybe Finland) Also, its etymology, which I’m off to look up now.

I once read an interesting article about the hundreds of words and phrases used worldwide to refer to the kind of doughnut that are filled with pie filling, and covered in powdered sugar. There must be one involving those, somewhere.

“Har skudt papegÃ¸jen” – having shot the parrot; meaning getting really lucky and winning a prize, landing a good job or getting a wonderful boy/girlfriend. Derives from an old rifle society in Copenhagen where the main target for competitions was a wooden parrot.

It may be of interest to you to know which of the Afrikaans words means “have sex” and why. You ma NAAI … NAAI is the word. And what does it literally mean? To sew. So you say “huh”? And then you remember a sewing machine, right? So now you know what Yo Landi means when she’s calling you a Naaier. A sewer. Go get your needle and thread then.